"Truffey," said Mr Malison, after a long pause, during which he had
been staring into the fire, "how's your leg?"

"Quite weel, thank ye, sir," answered Truffey, unconsciously putting
out the foot of the wrong leg on the fender. "There wasna onything the
maitter wi' 't."

"I mean the other leg, Truffey--the one that I--that I--hurt."

"Perfectly weel, sir. It's no worth speirin' efter. I wonner that ye
tak sic pains wi' me, sir, whan I was sic a nickum."

The master could not reply. But he was more grateful for Truffey's
generous forgiveness than he would have been for the richest living in
Scotland. Such forgiveness is just giving us back ourselves--clean and
happy. And for what gift can we be more grateful? He vowed over again
to do all he could for Truffey. Perhaps a sticket minister might have a
hand in making a minister that would not stick.

Then the master read Truffey's queer composition aloud, and
notwithstanding all his conscientious criticism, Truffey was delighted
with his own work when removed to an objective distance by the master's
reading. At length Mr Malison said:

"It's time to go home, Andrew Truffey. Put on my cloak--there. And keep
out of the puddles as much as you can."

"I'll pit the sma' fit in," said Truffey, holding up the end of his
crutch, as he stretched it forward to make one bound out of the door.
For he delighted in showing off his agility to the master.

CHAPTER LXII.

When Alec looked out of his window the next morning, he saw a broad
yellow expanse below. The Glamour was rolling, a mighty river, through
the land. A wild waste foamy water, looking cold and torn and troubled,
it swept along the fields where late the corn had bowed to the autumn
winds. But he had often seen it as high. And all the corn was safe in
the yard.

Neither he nor his mother regretted much that they could not go to
church. Mrs Forbes sat by the fire and read Hannah More's _Christian
Morals_, and Alec sat by the window reading James Montgomery's _World
before the Flood_, and watching the river, and the splashing of the
rain in the pluvial lake, for the water was nearly a foot deep around
the house, although it stood upon a knoll of gravel.

All night Tibbie Dyster had lain awake in her lonely cottage, listening
to the quiet heavy _go_ of the water from which all the sweet babbling
sounds and delicate music-tones had departed. The articulation of the
river-god was choked in the weight and